Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised this episode includes discussions of murder, torture, suicide, rape, sexual situations and sexual assault that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Well, it looks like another one, folks, get the umbrellas out if you're going out. Cloudy tomorrow with a 50 percent chance of precipitation.

In the spring of 1994, 39 year old Keith Jesperson paced around his living room. He had just finished watching the local news during which there was no mention of a serial killer terrorizing the Pacific Northwest.

Keith was frustrated that no one had figured out what he was doing. Frankly, he was sick and tired of not getting the recognition he believed he deserved. And if the cops were too stupid to find him on their own, then he would just have to help them.

Along with dreams of infamy, Keith composed a letter to The Oregonian newspaper. He hoped they would publish it like the San Francisco Chronicle did with the Zodiac killer's messages.

In the letter, Keith described the intimate details of Tanya Bennett's murder, including the location of her dumped body, when he was done with the gruesome descriptions, he signed off with a smiling, happy face.

Hi, I'm Greg Polson.

This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from podcast. Every episode we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today, we're finishing our look at Keith Jesperson, the twisted murderer otherwise known as the Happy Face Killer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson.

Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of Serial Killers and all other Spotify originals from podcast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Last time we discussed how Keith traumatic upbringing, rocky marriage and fascination with animal torture twisted his mind, today will detail how Keith became a sadistic rapist and impulsive murderer and how he got away with killing women across the West Coast.

We've got all that and more coming up.

Stay with us. On January 21st to 1990, 34 year old Keith Jesperson linked arms with 23 year old Tanya Bennett and strolled across the parking lot of the BNC Tavern in Portland, Oregon.

Keith and Tonya had met earlier that day when she had surprised him with a warm hug before bouncing off to her friends at a nearby table. A waitress saw the confusion on Keith's face and told him that Tanya greeted everyone like that.

She said that Tanya was developmentally disabled and also struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. Most of the men that Tanya met ended up taking advantage of her.

Keith was no exception. He found Tonya's disability appealing. When he left the bar, all he could think about was taking the beautiful woman as his sex slave. After fantasizing for hours, he drove back to the tavern to see if she was still there.

As luck would have it, Keith ran into Tanya in the parking lot when he asked her if she wanted to grab something to eat. She happily agreed. As soon as they got in the car, Keith told Tanya that he needed to make a stop at home to grab some cash. He asked her if she would come inside for a moment while he used the bathroom as Keith guided Tanya to his front door.

His mind raced with possibilities. He wanted complete sexual and physical control so that he could do whatever he wanted. After all, Tanya was a woman, and in Keith's mind, some women simply had it coming.

According to scholar Jennifer Elmeri, misogynistic and sexual fantasies can act as a motivating factor for serial killers.

Vanessa is going to take over the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show.

Thanks, Greg. Criminologists Rebecca and Russell Dubash have extensively studied men who murder women through their research. They found that in a lot of cases, men kill women due to some form of sexual jealousy. These men feel a sense of ownership over their partners. They can become irate when they feel they have lost control. For example, if a woman breaks up with this kind of man or denies him sex, he will often lash out, wanting to regain possession of what he believes he owns.

So once they were in his home, Keith felt entitled to make a move on Tanya. But when she tried to run for the door, he lost it. He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to his bed. He raped her repeatedly before she finally gathered the courage to tell him to stop.

At this point, we want to make clear that most of the accounts of Keith's crimes come directly from him. So it's entirely possible he misrepresented some situations. Unfortunately, we have only his side of the story to go on. Not that he comes out looking like a hero, just the opposite.

In fact, as he was continuing to assault Tanya, she yelled at him to stop and asked for the meal.

Keith promised her Keith couldn't handle a woman talking back, so he punched Tanya in the face. According to Keith, he didn't intend to kill her. He just wanted to make her easier to control. He hoped to knock her out, tie her up and keep her as his slave.

But when the first punch didn't knock Tanya out, he punched her again and again. Before long, the 23 year old's face was battered, bruised and bloody. But she was still conscious. She was also in pain.

And Keith didn't know how to handle the situation. He knew that if he took her to the hospital, he would end up behind bars and he couldn't have that.

So panicking, Keith put his hands around Tanya's throat and squeezed, choking her until she was finally still. Suddenly, Keith had a corpse on his hands and he had to think fast. Luckily, he'd seen enough episodes of the television show Perry Mason to know what he needed to do next. He washed his bloodstained clothes, put them back on and returned to the BNC tavern there. He drank for a few hours to establish an alibi.

On his way home from the bar, Keith kept an eye out for a secluded areas where he could dump Tanya's body. He also stopped to get gas and checked his brake lights. He wasn't about to get stranded or pulled over with a dead body in his car when he finally got back home.

Keith tied a rope around Tonya's neck, dragged her lifeless form out to his car and shoved her into the front seat.

He drove about 10 miles, then pulled off the highway. He dumped Tanya into a ravine that led into the Columbia River Gorge. Then he sped off.

Keith spent the rest of the night at a familiar truck stop wanting to strengthen his alibi after he drove a few miles to drop off Tanya's purse and a BlackBerry bush. When he got home the next morning, he cleaned his carpet twice and steam cleaned. It wants to get rid of the blood. Then, after a few failed attempts at scrubbing the blood from the ceiling, he just painted over it. It wasn't long before Tanya's mangled body was discovered apprehensive, Keith spent the rest of January playing the part of a model citizen.

He drove exactly the speed limit at all times and rarely left his house.

But the guilt of the murder and the fear of getting caught weighed so heavily on Keith that he even contemplated suicide.

Fortunately for Keith, in February, a woman confessed to the murder and implicated her boyfriend in the act as well, while Keith was delighted by the turn of events. He was also confused. He couldn't understand why someone would take the fall for his crime.

The answer to that is another story altogether. 57 year old Laverne Pasternack was in an abusive relationship with 39 year old John Sosnowski, desperate to break free from his grasp. She contacted authorities and blamed John for Tanya's murder.

At first, the detectives thought Laverne's story was not conclusive enough. But then, during more interviews, Laverne changed her story. She claimed that John had forced her to become an accessory to both the rape and murder of Tonya.

Of course, John denied everything when prosecutors determined they had enough evidence to arrest both Laverne and John for the crime. Laverne backpedalled. She confessed that she'd made everything up in order to get away from John. Unfortunately, no one believed her, as Laverne and John awaited trial.

Keith enjoyed his freedom. He worked doing freelance construction jobs and even got back together with his ex-girlfriend, who will call Martha. Their relationship remained fraught with conflict, but he was happy to have her back in his life.

But Keith's newfound peace wasn't to last. In April of 1990, three months after he murdered Tanya, he met his next victim. While on his way to a job in Sacramento, California, Keith stopped for the night in the town of Shasta. He was in the parking lot of a local mall debating whether to sleep in his car or get a motel room when he noticed a 21 year old woman who will call Jessica sitting alone in the parking lot. He decided to approach her.

She was nursing a baby and seemed a little upset. The two started chatting and eventually Keith invited her into his car for a drive.

She agreed.

But soon Jessica realized something was off as Keith began making his move. Jessica tried to stop him, even attempting to get out of the car around.

Keith wasn't prepared to let her go. As he sexually assaulted her, Jessica screamed and continuously tried to break away. This, of course, made Keith panicked and angry. So we put her in a headlock and tried to break her neck.

Fortunately, Jessica's baby started wailing, forcing Keith to realize that if he killed her, he'd have to kill her baby, too. As both a father and a survivor of parental abuse, Keith had vowed to never hurt a child. Hearing the baby's cries changed everything.

After a few sobering breaths, he let Jessica go. When she attempted to run, Keith offered to drive the young mother wherever she wanted. It was cold out, and Keith's demeanor had clearly shifted. So Jessica allowed him to drop her off back at the parking lot where they had met later that night.

Keith stopped at a motel in Corning, about 50 miles south of Shasta. He was proud of himself for controlling his urges and looked forward to getting a good night's sleep.

But as soon as he walked into the lobby, police appeared from behind. They handcuffed Keith, read him his rights and told him that he was under arrest for assaulting Jessica.

Soon after, Keith was led into an interrogation room at the Corning police station, Keith's story was almost identical to Jessica's, except he denied ever trying to break her neck. On that point, he said Jessica was lying. Ultimately, the police believed Keith. They decided that his story did not reveal actions of a man who intended to hurt a woman.

So the Corning police led Keith go, but told him he needed to return to Shasta to check in with the local authorities. Keith agreed and immediately headed back to Shasta to interview with police. He was charged with battery assault, but pleaded no contest. The police let him go, but told him to keep in contact while matters were still being settled. Keith quickly sped off, continuing his drive to Sacramento for work.

The incident with Jessica seemed to teach Keith a valuable lesson. He'd let her go and she led the police right to him. He wouldn't make that mistake the next time. Coming up, Keith tries to resist his murderous impulses, but fails listeners, it's Greg.

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When police arrested Keith for the assault, he was charged but pleaded no contest. So they let him go in the meantime.

Now, Keith clearly wasn't as happy as he wanted to be. It seemed he struggled with low self-esteem and often felt like he was invisible. His relationship with Martha was worsening by the day, and he felt like his own kids didn't see him as their father anymore.

He felt empty inside when his 10 year old son, Jason, got a concussion in October of 1990. Keith decided to move to Washington to be closer to his children. He and Martha relocated to Spokane, and he tried to take a more active role in his kids lives.

But even after making the effort to be better, Keith still felt like no one appreciated him. His ex-wife, Rose, didn't think he was a good father, and Martha didn't think he was a good boyfriend. In Keith's mind, no one saw him for the man that he really was. In fact, it was becoming clear to him that no one saw him at all.

In January of 1991, Keith turned on the news and was appalled to see Laverne Pasternak and John Sosnowski were convicted for the murder of Tonya Bennett, except he wasn't upset that two innocent people were going to prison. He was furious that someone else was getting recognition for his handiwork. He'd been overlooked once again. After that, he was sure things couldn't get any worse. But he was wrong. At some point, Keith and Martha landed jobs as long haul truckers, which meant they were often paired together for lengthy drives, but the two were not always on the best of terms.

In February of 1991, Keith drove a truck through Illinois as Martha sat by his side in the passenger seat. Once they got to a check station in Rock Island, Illinois, the woman manning the scales ran Keith's name through the system and discovered that there was a warrant out for his arrest. She called the police and within minutes, Keith was once again in custody for his assault on Jessica.

Martha tried to protest. There was simply no way her boyfriend was guilty of such a crime.

But when Keith told her it was true, her eyes flooded with tears. She watched as Keith was handcuffed and pushed into a cop car after a couple of days in jail.

Keith's charge was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor. Additionally, the cost of extraditing him to California wasn't worth the trouble.

So Rock Island authorities let him go and simply told him to report to the courthouse there on his own.

As Keith rode a Greyhound bus back to Spokane, he couldn't believe he'd evaded prison yet again.

But instead of feeling fear and frustration about the close call, Keith felt powerful. He felt invincible. Why? He believed he could even confess to Tanya's murder and still get away with it when his bus stopped in Livingston, Montana.

Keith went into a restroom and pulled out a pen on the door of a stall. He wrote, I killed Tanya Bennett January 21st, 1990, in Portland, Oregon. I beat her to death, raped her and loved it. Yes, I'm sick, but I enjoy myself to people, took the blame and I'm free.

He was in such a good mood that at the bottom of his confession, he signed off with a little happy face. Then he got back on the bus and returned home.

While Keith felt proud of his accomplishments, he knew his crimes could cost him his family. If he went to jail, he'd never see his children again. So in an attempt to keep himself from killing, Keith spent the next year and a half trying to satisfy his cravings with sex workers he met on the road.

But by the summer of 1992, 37 year old Keith accepted that rough but consensual sex wasn't cutting it. He got off on fear, and most of the time these women weren't afraid of him. And those who did get scared often used weapons like Mace to defend themselves.

By now, Keith was desperate for a real victim, one who wouldn't see him coming and wouldn't be able to fight back. And to his delight, just such a woman came straight to him.

One hot summer morning, Keith was checking the brakes of his truck alongside Highway 15 near San Bernardino in California. As he worked, a young woman approached and asked if she could hitch a ride.

She told him her name was Claudia and said she was headed to Phoenix. Keith said he'd be happy to take her and invited her into his truck once inside.

Keith immediately tried to have sex with Claudia. She protested, but he became more aggressive. He raped her several times and then climbed into the driver's seat and continued on his route like nothing had happened when they took a break at the next stop.

Keith wondered why Claudia didn't try to run, not that he would have let her, but her inaction confused him nonetheless. It was only after she started asking him to buy her drugs that he realized what she was really after.

Keith insisted that he wasn't going to buy Claudia any drugs, which finally provoked a response from her. She threatened him. She told Keith to give her all the money in his wallet if he didn't. She said she'd get out of the truck and tell the rest of the security guard that he'd assaulted her.

Keith didn't respond well to the ultimatum. He locked the doors, grabbed a roll of duct tape and bound Claudia's hands and feet together. He knocked her unconscious, then taped her to the side of the sleeper cab with his young prisoner secure.

Keith headed back on his route after he'd been on the road for a couple of hours. He heard some rustling from the back. Claudia had broken free and was trying to get dressed.

Keith pulled over, hopped into the back and restrained Claudia with more tape. Then he started playing what he called, quote, A little death came. He choked Claudia until she passed out. He let her wake up and then choked her all over again. This twisted game Keith played indicates that he was a sexually sadistic killer who enjoyed toying with his victims, author Steven Michaud studies sexual serial killers and believes that the concept of possession, of owning and controlling the victim is central to the sexual serial killer's psyche.

Unlike mass murderers, sexual serial killers find true enjoyment and gratification in the act of killing. They can relish the experience and feel unsatisfied if it ends too quickly. The longer a sexual serial killer can prolong their victim's survival, the more powerful they feel.

When he finished toying with Claudia, her lifeless body lay before him. In that moment, Keith felt that the power within his hands was indeed supernatural. While he knew he should feel a sense of guilt for his crimes.

All he wanted was to kill again and soon.

But before he could do that, Keith had to get rid of the body. He drove about 70 miles to the small desert town of Blythe, California. There, he dragged Claudia into a brush filled canyon and covered her with tumbleweeds.

After that, he was back on the road, carrying on with his life, waiting for the next moment to strike.

He wouldn't be waiting long. About a month or so after he killed Claudia, Keith was at a rest stop in Turlock, California, when he was accosted by a blonde in a red sweater, she jumped up into his truck and asked if he wanted to party. Keith told her he was too tired and told her to leave.

A couple of hours later, while Keith was sound asleep, the passenger side door swung open and the woman in red climbed into the cab. Keith was irate. He had told her in no uncertain terms to leave him alone.

He'd make her regret crossing him.

He slammed her down on the bed and immediately started strangling her. He didn't want to kill her right away, but before he knew it, she'd stopped breathing. Now Keith was even more frustrated. He didn't get to toy with this victim. He didn't even know her name. The entire event felt like a huge waste and now he had to get rid of another body.

He drove south for about 80 miles, then dumped the woman behind a cafe in Fresno, California. As he continued on his route, Keith vowed to take his time with his next kill.

In November of 1992, he pulled into the Bern's brother's truck stop in Wilsonville, Oregon. He hoped to run into a sex worker named Lori Pentland, who he'd had fun with in the past.

As luck would have it, he found her. Keith invited her back into his truck where they had sex for over an hour. After they finished, Lori demanded eighty dollars for her work.

Keith protested. The usual rate was only forty dollars. But Lori said that because she'd stayed with him twice as long, she was owed twice as much. When he continued to argue the charge, Laurie threatened to call the cops.

Keith saw Red he hated when women tried to intimidate him, and he told Lori she'd just made a huge mistake. He punched her in the throat and strangled her. As she passed out, he leaned over her and whispered, Your number four. That pushed your luck with me. Now you're dead. Coming up, the happy face killer leaves a sinister trail. Now back to the story. In November of 1992, 37 year old Keith Jesperson squeezed the air out of Lori Pentland, a sex worker he knew from a rest stop.

He watched the life drain from her eyes, waited a couple of seconds, then smacked her awake.

He played his death game for about an hour when she finally took her last breath. Keith, sexually gratified himself, then slid back into the driver's seat.

It didn't take him long to decide and the perfect place to dump the body.

Keith drove through the town of Salem, Oregon, and pulled into the parking lot of a sporting goods store. Under the cover of darkness, he hoisted Lori's body over the six foot fence that surrounded the property and dropped her into a pile of leaves.

Keith got to work establishing his alibi, making sure to call his office from various stops along his route. He also replaced the bed roll from his truck, wanting to dispose of any forensic evidence it hid.

But as he did so, he realized he needed to slow down.

Murder was fun for Keith, but it wasn't worth losing his kids and destroying his life.

After Lori, he swore to himself that he was done killing once and for all.

However, in March of 1993, Keith met a woman who made him forget his promise while grabbing food at a truck stop in Corning, California. He crossed paths with a young woman named Cindy. They struck up a conversation and he agreed to give her a ride to Sacramento.

After driving for about 40 miles, he pulled into an empty rest stop and the two reportedly had consensual sex. But once they were done and Cindy started to get cuddly, Keith's violent urges emerged.

He held Cindy down and raped her.

Then he played his game of death, forcing her to pass out four or five times until eventually she didn't wake up.

He tossed her body carelessly onto a pile of rocks and then drove about 200 miles to Gilroy, California, where he pulled over and slept like a baby.

You see the four major Patrice's. While Keith was thrilled to have gotten away with his fifth murder, he was also annoyed no one seemed to realize that there was a serial killer on the loose.

Keith felt he deserved the same kind of notoriety that Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy received.

So he decided to do something about it.

He started writing letters first to the Washington County courthouse and then to The Oregonian newspaper. He detailed the murders of Tonya and Cindy, including information that only their true killer would know. Then he scientists letters with his signature happy face.

Keith waited but got nothing. No one published any of his letters, and no one issued a press release.

It was incredibly frustrating. And when he was frustrated, Keith wanted to kill.

Keith was in a tricky spot, even though he desired recognition for his crimes, he also wanted to keep himself from killing again and he managed to control himself for over a year. But towards the end of 1994, 39 year old Keith offered a ride to a young woman he met at a truck stop in Tampa, Florida, in the middle of the night. He raped and killed her, even though his sixth murder followed the same pattern as the others.

It felt less personal. He didn't even remember the woman's name. Still, Keith went through the motions of dumping her body and creating an alibi, disappointed that he didn't feel as fulfilled by this kill just a few months later, in January of 1995.

Keith met 21 year old Angela Seabreeze at a hotel in Spokane, Washington. After a couple of drinks at the bar, they went up to Keith's room, where they indulged in a night of sex and room service. Then Angela join Keith on the road as he headed east.

She wanted to visit an old boyfriend in Indiana, and Keith promised to drop her off during their ride.

Angela revealed that she may be pregnant, but she didn't know who the father was. She planned on sleeping with her ex as soon as she got to Indiana so that she could tell him the baby was his. This upset Keith greatly. He hated the thought of a woman taking advantage of another man.

Angela further irritated Keith by never letting him get any rest instead of sleeping. When Keith did, she often dozed off while he was at the wheel and would impatiently wake him after he only caught a couple of hours of shuteye. Throughout their drive, he was increasingly tired and cranky, and by the time they reached Nebraska, he had had enough.

Keith pulled over at a rest stop and told Angela he wanted to go to sleep when she started whining. He grabbed his duct tape and taped her mouth shut. Then he bound her hands over her head after he raped her several times.

Keith played his game of death. He choked Angela until she fell unconscious, waited for her to wake up, then choked her all over again. According to Keith, she died during the fourth or fifth round.

Keith took his time with the kill, but he wasn't finished enjoying himself yet because he knew he'd been seen with Angela at the hotel in Washington. Getting rid of her body required more effort than usual in the middle of the night.

Keith pulled Angela's body underneath his truck. He strung her underneath the vehicle face down.

He dragged Angela's body for 12 miles, then pulled over to see what was left of her when he crawled under the truck. Keith was pleased the body was unrecognisable.

After dropping Angela's mangled corpse into a ditch, Keith continued his drive. He could barely control the swirl of emotions erupting inside while he was proud of getting away with another murder. He also felt sick that he still had the urge to kill. He felt worthless.

While it's unclear whether Keith was ever diagnosed with any mental or personality disorders, his behavior suggests he had narcissistic tendencies. Narcissists have been known to display extreme confidence, making people assume that they have healthy self-esteem. However, studies by psychologists after Sigmund Freud and Heinz Kahuta assert that it's just the opposite. Narcissists feelings of grandiosity are actually defenses used to mask fragile egos and deep wells of self-loathing. While most narcissists have difficulty feeling empathy for others, some reach a point where they're able to feel sorry for themselves without proper therapy.

It's difficult for narcissists to progress beyond this point. They don't know how to soothe themselves in a healthy way, so they often return to their old vices to make themselves feel better. For Keith, that was murder. Not that it helped him heal.

By March of 1995, the 39 year old was drowning in self-loathing and had no idea what to do about it. Not even a familiar face could snap him out of his existential funk.

When he spotted his ex-girlfriend, Julie Winningham, at a truck stop in Oregon, his first instinct was to hide. The two had dated for a couple of months, a year and a half prior, but their relationship ended because she was unfaithful.

But 41 year old Julie saw Keith before he could slip out the door. She gave him a warm embrace and before long they were in his truck having sex. Then she just stayed. When Keith headed back on the road, he had Julie by his side.

Keith hoped that Julie had matured since their breakup, but quickly saw that she was the exact same person she'd been a year ago. She depended on him for money. She flirted with other men and she drank and smoked pot to excess after five days together.

Keith was sick of her. One night after they'd hooked up in the back of his truck, she asked him for two thousand dollars to cover the cost of some DWI tickets when he refused.

She got angry. Julie said that if he didn't give her the money, she'd tell all of her friends that he'd raped her.

Keith felt a familiar combination of rage and arousal bubbling up inside, he strangled Julie until she passed out, then taped her arms and legs together. Then he kept driving, determined to make the night last.

At one point, Keith pulled over and started having sex with her again, according to Keith. Julie pretended to enjoy it, perhaps hoping her compliance would earn her freedom. But Keith had no intention of letting her go.

After that, Keith played his death game, choking Julie three or four times before punching her in the throat, killing her. Afterwards, he drove down Highway 14 and pulled over by the Washington side of Columbia River Gorge, the same river where he dumped Tonya Bennett.

Keith dragged Julie's body down into an embankment, covered it with some weeds, then climbed back into his truck and wept. But he wasn't sad about killing his girlfriend. He was scared of getting caught. Lots of people had seen him with Julie over the past week and even more knew about their history.

He briefly considered moving Julie's body to another location, perhaps somewhere more remote, but decided against it. By now, it seemed Keith was ready for the nightmare to be over, but he couldn't bring himself to confess. Not yet, anyway.

A couple of weeks later, Keith got a call from his trucking office. The dispatcher told him that his next pick up was that the Las Cruces Fairgrounds in New Mexico.

When Keith asked what the order was, the dispatcher said he didn't know Keith grew suspicious. Dispatchers always knew what their drivers were picking up despite his misgivings.

He went to the fairground anyway, though it looked like the place was deserted. When Keith got out of his truck, he was quickly surrounded by cops. They told him he was a suspect in Julie's murder and escorted him to the police station for five long hours.

Detectives questioned Keith about Julie while he was worried he wasn't actually under arrest. That met authorities probably didn't have enough evidence to prove his guilt. And Keith knew that. So the trucker played dumb.

It worked when they couldn't get a confession out of him. The police released Keith, but made it clear they were watching him. They also took a DNA sample and fingerprinted him before he left. As Keith drove into the night, he knew it was only a matter of time before they locked him up for good.

He contemplated suicide, wanting a way out. He even wrote a letter to his brother Brad, confessing his crimes. But then Keith decided he could confess to the police and likely received the death penalty.

Aqab Winwin. So in March of 1995, he called the authorities to confess to the murder of Julie Winningham. Though he only confessed to Julie's murder as he awaited trial behind bars, Keith started issuing statements to the press. In these statements, he admitted to his other murders and provided details that only the killer would know. He was thrilled to finally be able to brag about his crimes and wasn't shy with the details. And his openness helped bring the notoriety he'd once craved.

A pen pal, Sandra London published his detailed letters online, drawing attention from the press.

With Sandra's assistance, Keith launched a website and started communicating with the public and media. His posts alternated between boasting about his murders and denying involvement altogether. After a barrage of complaints, AOL shut the site down, but it made no difference. Keith had a fan base and people were eager to know more about the sadistic murderer. At one point, his correspondence with the media actually proved to be helpful.

Between 1994 and 1995, Keith worked with journalists to help exonerate Laverne Pasternak and John Sosnowski for the murder of Tonya Bennett. Tonya's purse had never been found, and Keith directed reporters to the BlackBerry Bush where he'd hidden it in 1990. This proved that he was the real killer and allowed Laverne and John to go free. It seemed Keith hoped his gesture would cast him in a more favorable light at his upcoming trial. But he was wrong. In November of 1995, he was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Julie Winningham.

Subsequent trials for other murders tacked on additional life sentences without parole. And Keith is currently serving time in the Oregon State Penitentiary.

For years, Keith Jesperson struggled with the desire for notoriety while knowing the discovery would lead to imprisonment, he desperately craved recognition and to him, murder was the only way to get it.

Even after his sentencing. Keith couldn't stop himself from contacting the press and continued talking to fans on the Internet for a time. He autographed T-shirts with his signature happy face and mailed them to his twisted devotees.

But fame is fleeting, and people eventually lost interest. These days, he's largely forgotten, like graffiti scrawled on a bathroom wall. Keith has faded over time and was barely glanced at to begin with.

Murder, you see, rarely gets you what you want.

Thanks again for tuning into serial killers.

We'll be back soon with a new episode for more information on Keith Jespersen.

Amongst the many sources we used, we found ie the creation of a serial killer by Jack Olsen, extremely helpful to our research.

You can find all episodes of Serial Killers and all other originals from podcast for free on Spotify.

Will see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from podcast, executive producers include Max and Ron Cuddler Sound Design by Brian Galab with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Bruce Kaktovik. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Lee Reid with writing assistants by Abigail Canham, fact checking by Adriana Romero and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea. Would Serial Killers stars Greg Polson and Vanessa Richardson.

Don't forget to check out the dictator's podcast every Tuesday, they go deep into the minds of some of history's most despised despots. You'll get insight into their rise to power and the impact of their downfall. Search for dictators in the Spotify app and listen free today.